Some of the personal details exposed by Cityfile's detectives are merely embarrassing, such as my own middle name, Guido. The detail on people's homes, including actual addresses and the purchase price of condos, will be controversial: there has been an unspoken pact between celebrities and reporters that even publicly available information is fudged to confuse stalkers, who will now know to wait outside 285 Lafayette Street for David Bowie and Janice Min, for instance. But most importantly, Cityfile's profiles on media and other personalities will help provide the backstory for otherwise shallow online media converage.

New York figures such as Anna Wintour (who just celebrated the 20th anniversary of her ascension to the helm of Vogue) so predate the twentysomethings that cover the city that their messy and illuminating histories are ignored. For today's short-attention-span media, without the benefit of grizzled colleagues, this new site may represent something of an institutional memory.